Where are they now? Game features/mechanics that mysteriously went MIA

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Where are they now? Game features/mechanics that mysteriously went MIA

A thread about one of the newfangled Tom Clancy Ghost Recon games inevitably brought up comparisons to the older games in the franchises. And reminded me of a feature that made an otherwise needlessly frustrating shooter something interesting - the go codes. Used to be you could order your teammates to move around the maps and switch combat roles as they reached way points or on the fly which worked OK. But they did their best when you used a command to make them stop and wait for your order to do something. This made flanking and clearing dangerous areas a game of chess with bullets. It was great.

But somewhere, sometime, this mechanic just vanished. Perhaps no coincidence that the overall quality of the games plummeted at the same time since Ubisoft's AI coders could be replaced with high schoolers starting out in computer programing classes and no one would be able to tell the difference.

What other game features/mechanics have suddenly just vanished for no good reason?

A thread about one of the newfangled Tom Clancy Ghost Recon games inevitably brought up comparisons to the older games in the franchises. And reminded me of a feature that made an otherwise needlessly frustrating shooter something interesting - the go codes. Used to be you could order your teammates to move around the maps and switch combat roles as they reached way points or on the fly which worked OK. But they did their best when you used a command to make them stop and wait for your order to do something.

Same with Rainbox Six: Rogue Spear. Me and a friend would spend afternoons planning entire maps. No personal interaction whatsoever, just the go codes with sometimes one whole hour spent just on the pre-game planning stages. Start up the map, and all you do is watch like a commander and push a button occasionally when all the teams are in place. Stack up here, flashbang room, clear, stack up there, and so on. The aim would usually be to get as far as possible on our first try, because that obviously meant one seriously excellent plan. Sometimes we'd have to resort to 3 or 4 tries with trial and error being the crutch in really shitty situations.

Still, we spent days just planning maps and then watching them play out with the occasional button push for alpha, bravo, delta etc.

But yeah, hanging out of a vestibule while sitting on the lean key is a one-way ticket to Headshot City, as that's the only part of you the enemy can shoot, but take half a step to the left and work a little more of an angle and both your head and the weapon you are aiming no longer protrude anywhere thanks to clipping, making your little spot a particularly onerous campsite.

Last edited by Nalano; 18-01-2013 at 06:12 PM.

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

I miss weak stealth characters (although I haven't played mark of the ninja) without takedowns. Garrett was fucked when he was caught if he could not get away.
Also a basic set of movement abilities vs. animated interactions. They both have their pros and cons; it looks cool in Arkham City, but it also will infrequently leave you gliding for three seconds next to the edge of a building, etc.
I miss the Black Isle days when one or two good rtwp RPGs were coming out a year.
I miss the ability to fly in elder scroll games.
I miss paragraphs of text in games (I don't like VNs though).
I miss shuffling through bargain bins for strange games; I miss dual-jewels.
I miss being able to fight a boss in an action game without having to climb on his head.
I miss good Star Wars games; Kyle Katarn and Desann were fun bosses, I would keep saves at the boss fight so I could do it again and again.
I miss dialogue boxes and games without full VO.

I was going to say old school super fast super unrealistic FPS arenas, but Tribes Ascend sounds exactly like that.

Lest we be too overcome with nostalgia I do not miss Nintendo difficulty.
I do not miss old graphics.
I do not miss changing 4 CDs.
I do not miss having to crack every game because no one offered a service like Steam.
I do not miss playing hunt for the newest drivers at every game release.
I do not miss physical toggles on mobos.
I do not miss pin configuration on hard-drives.
I do not miss being financially captive to a breakneck technology improvement race.
I do not miss a time when the virtually all games were linear: they can be done well, but a stupid open world game is normally more fun (Just Cause 2) than a stupid FPS (C&C Renegade). I do not miss the time when AAA publishers were the only place for games.
I do not miss Dos or windows 95 or XP.
I do not miss pirating games to keep up with all the kids in school.
I do not miss 18-year long loading screens (although Mass Effect tries its damnedest).
I do not miss the old 3d where you would take a step and it would load a new picture and only turn in four directions.
I do not miss textboxes where the correct phrasing was a guess.

I'm trying to think of one that's actually mysterious to me (as opposed to something I liked but understand why it fell out of fashion). But the only one I can think of isn't really too mysterious because it was pretty annoying...but I will still say it:

I miss being able to play dead in Team Fortress Classic.

Support for my all-pepperjack-cheese food bank charity drive has been lukewarm at best.